


Hawk Rescue

by Feynite



Series: Wildlife Rescue [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Transformation, Fluff, Humour, Modern AU, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 16:51:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/pseuds/Feynite
Summary: In which Uthvir is not an ordinary hawk, and that's very good news for Thenvunin.





	1. Chapter 1

_This is a slight issue,_  Uthvir is forced to conclude, from the interior of a large cardboard box.

Guns.

Somehow in the grand scheme of things, they always manage to forget that  _guns_  are a thing. Particularly when coming off of the tail end of a fight between a few ancient gods, where mortals seem so much more harmless by comparison. 

Evading Dirthamen’s ravens had been challenging enough. The hunter had not spared much thought for the notion that the humans near to the roost they’d finally retreated to might pose a problem as well.

Not until one of them had taken out a gun and fired off a few shots.

As if Uthvir were some kind of verminous pigeon. Or a fat, sitting duck. They had taken off, of course, but the damage was done; pain ripping through their wing as they crashed through the air towards the city, flying blind and more on magic than muscle until the last of their tattered reserves had given up, and they had blacked out.

And now here they are.

In a box.

Possibly in a van, as well, judging by the sounds of things.

They give a moment’s consideration to the prospect of transforming back. But their wing is burning, and they have been tightly wrapped in… a towel. Well, that is not much of an issue in itself. Surprising their captor with a naked elf in the back of their van instead of a hawk could have mixed results. They would take the chance on it, but without being able to see the damage to their wing, transforming could be an exceptionally bad idea.

They peck at the box for a while instead.

Fool warring siblings. Dragging everyone else into their conflicts.

Well.

Perhaps not  _warring._

Quarrelling, anyway.

After a time, the rumbling of the engines stop. They are jostled, slightly, as a door shuts with a  _bang_ , and then there is the scent of fresh air and the soft  _whoosh_  of modern car hinges as the back is opened. The light filtering in through the holes in the box brightens. Uthvir braces themselves, considering, as they hear the slide of cardboard across a firm surface, and they are moved.

They think they could peck through the box and get a palm or two.

But perhaps it would be better to wait and assess.

There’s the steady rhythm of footsteps, and then the light changes and changes again, until it seems like the box is put down. After a moment, the top is opened; gloved hands give credence to the wisdom of waiting. Uthvir blinks and finds…

Oh.

_Well._

A not-at-all unattractive elf peers down towards them. He has vallaslin on the sharp features of his face, and long blond hair held back in a careful ponytail. A surprisingly high-quality set of clothes, and, from what Uthvir can see, a fairly nice set of shoulders, too. Not the look of a hunter, they think.

“Hello there, pretty bird,” the elf says, in a gentle voice.

 _Hello to you, too,_  they think, and clack their beak a bit.

~

It is like a vacation, Uthvir decides.

A vacation in a large indoor cage, while their wing heals the slow way, and they are catered to by a handsome, ridiculously amusing Dalish elf. Named Thenvunin. The man, Uthvir swiftly realizes, has a thing for birds, and is an endless source of entertainment. He runs some kind of animal sanctuary. The luckiest of all possible outcomes, given the situation.

Thenvunin is not the only employee, of course. There is a veterinarian, Tutha-something-or-other, who helps set up Uthvir’s wing to heal properly. And there is Tarensa, who feeds them sometimes, and spends a great deal of time yelling at people on her phone.

And there is Sethtaren.

Sethtaren is, as near as Uthvir can tell, Thenvunin’s significant other. He does not actually work in the sanctuary, although he belongs to the clan that maintains it. He seems to find the whole thing to be, at best, an elaborate waste of time and money.

Uthvir does not care for Sethtaren.

They wake when the lights in the little recovery room come on, and Thenvunin comes in, carrying what seems to be fresh rabbit. Nice. They make their way along a fake branch until they are closer to the front of the cage.

“Good morning!” Thenvunin greets. “Did you sleep well?”

Uthvir gives an internal shrug. They have had worse nights.

Sethtaren follows his boyfriend in.

“ _Creators_ , Thenvunin,  _shut up_. It is a bird. It has no idea what you are saying.”

Thenvunin sniffs.

Uthvir adds another note to the mental they have been compiling. It is titled ‘reasons to do something awful to Sethtaren’. It was already sufficiently filled with the first note, but every addition brings the moronic elf two steps closer to just being flat-out murdered. By their estimates, Uthvir suspects things will have reached that point by the end of the week. 

The likelier question is whether they will take care of Sethtaren before or after they deal with the humans who shot them.

“Birds understand tone,” Thenvunin tells his useless significant other.

Sethtaren sighs.

“You know you look like a weirdo, right?” he complains. “You smell like this place whenever you leave it. If you want me to start buying you cologne there are better ways to angle for it.”

Carefully, Thenvunin places several cut-up chunks of rabbit meat into a dish in the cage. His eyebrows are up, and there is a muscle in his jaw that is clenching.

“I am sure I cannot recall the last time you gave me a gift. It would be the pinnacle of naivety for me to think you would be that considerate,” Thenvunin says, stiffly.

Sethtaren throws his hands up into the air.

“Oh,  _here_  we go!” he complains. “More queenly dramatics. You are such a stereotype.  _Oh, my boyfriend never buys me gifts! Oh, he doesn’t make me feel pretty anymore!_ When was the last time  _you_  got  _me_  anything?”

“Two weeks ago, for our sixth anniversary,” Thenvunin counters icily. “Not that you were here for it.”

Sethtaren rolls his eyes.

“I had to work. Gods above, you and your ‘septuple anniversary of the day we first held hands’ bullshit. It is six in the damn morning, I drove all the way out here to see you, and already you are criticizing me for not paying enough attention to you!”

“You started it!” Thenvunin counters, bristling all over.

His boyfriend scoffs.

“Mature, Thenvunin. Very mature.”

Turning on his heel, Sethtaren stalks back towards the door.

“It smells like bird shit in here. I’m going to go wait in the car. Maybe you should ask the hawk for some relationship advice while I’m gone,” the idiot suggests. He makes a dramatic exit, slamming the door in his wake.

Thenvunin scowls.

After a few seconds, he glances at Uthvir; who is currently ignoring breakfast in favour of the show.

 _Dump him,_  Uthvir mentally advises.

As if he heard that, Thenvunin’s lips twitch a bit.

“You should eat,” he says.

A valid point.

Uthvir will need to keep their strength up, in order to deliver appropriate retributions later on.

 

~

 

A dream.

Thenvunin is standing in the room where Uthvir’s cage is. But the cage is gone; and so is most of the other furniture in the room. His back is towards them, as he looks out a nearby window. Sunlight streams in, catching on dust motes, and in the pale strands of the man’s hair. He is wearing a set of lavender silk pyjamas.

Uthvir comes up behind him. An elf rather than a hawk. They slide their hands around his waist, and he stills in surprise. The edges of their nails trail over the soft fabric, as they draw their touch upwards, spreading their palms against his chest and pulling him flush against them. They crane up to blow a breath across the back of his neck.

He shivers in their arms.

“Seth…?”

A low chuckle escapes them.

“Most assuredly not.”

One of their hands creeps low, then. They slip their touch beneath the waistband of Thenvunin’s pants. Drawing fingertips carefully over the skin of his abdomen, and brushing a kiss to the back of his neck. He shivers, again, and presses back into them. They grind their hips against his backside in return, and earn themselves a hitched breath as payment.

“I am dreaming,” Thenvunin says.

Uthvir hums, because he is. But even so. They do not venture too far in their ministrations, or press their obvious advantage too heavily. Thenvunin leans into them like a man who has just spent weeks in the desert, and has been offered his first flask of water; so desperate to partake, and yet also hesitant, as if tangled up in some invisible thread.

Uthvir grins against the back of his shoulder.

They have very sharp claws.

Perhaps they can cut through it.

As their touch at last dips lower, they sink their teeth into the firm muscle at their lips; through fabric and skin, as Thenvunin lets out a startled breath. His blood is a sharp tang upon Uthvir’s tongue. There is just the faintest whisper of magic to it. They seal the bite with a kiss. Seal the magic with a breath of gratitude for their rescuer.

Then they blink awake.

Their arms are empty, and no longer arms at all. Their wing aches, and the sky is still dark. The cage is back. So are most of the room’s other decorations. Uthvir suffers through one disjointed moment, where they find themselves thinking of nests and treasures and shiny gifts they can accumulate, with which to win over a pretty-feathered mate; and then they recall themselves, shaking off the stray bird-thoughts.

Though.

In essence, they suppose, that is not a bad idea.

~

Uthvir glares through the mesh of their cage.

“Not here!” Thenvunin hisses, as his boyfriend paws ineptly at him. His gaze drifts over to Uthvir. Sethtaren follows it, and then scoffs.

“It is a  _bird,_  Thenvunin,” he says. “Besides. If you are going to start spending  _all_  of your time here, where else can we do it?”

“I can see you tonight.”

“Or we can just take care of things right now. I have a meeting with a client tonight.”

“What? What client?”

“The company’s got that new contract with Antivan Airlines, remember? They rearranged a few things on me and I have to meet with one of their representatives tonight. Pretty thing. The sort that makes a man consider straying, you know. Especially when his usual well has dried up on him.”

There is a pointed quality to his voice.

Thenvunin scowls.

“Go dry yourself up,” he snaps, folding his arms.

Uthvir clacks their beak in approval.

Sethtaren glares, his expression twisting.

“Do you have to be such a fucking trial all the time?” he protests. “It’ll take a few minutes, tops. Just bend over. Or come here and actually put that mouth of yours to good use.”

 _Smoothly done,_  Uthvir mentally scoffs, glaring holes into the back of the idiot’s head.

“I am busy!” Thenvunin insists.

“A few minutes, Thenvunin! Gods above. In the time we’ve spent debating this we could have been done by now,” Sethtaren counters.

“Or you could have left and let me get back to work,” Thenvunin counters.

His boyfriend’s expression sours yet further.

“So, this is it, then? A few minutes is too much time for you to bother to take to keep someone you supposedly ‘love’ happy? The birds are not going to marry you,  _Thenvunin._ They are not going to take you to fancy parties, or impress your parents, or help you pay the rent on your apartment when you come up short because you’ve spent every dime you have on designer clothes and pigeon feed.”

_Well, as a matter of fact…_

“Sethtaren…”

Thenvunin trails off, uncertainly, and Uthvir feels a note of intense displeasure as Sethtaren reaches over to cup his cheek.

“Do you really care so little for me now? I know I haven’t been as attentive as I could be, but there has been a lot of stress at work lately. I want to get promoted. I want to make enough that I can finally buy us a nice place to live, together. You and me. Some townhouse in Denerim, right in the middle of the city. Away from all the birds and all this traditionalist Dalish nature crap. I’ll take you to fancy restaurants and parties and buy you gifts on every excessive anniversary you can name. I am doing all of it  _for you_ ,” he croons.

Thenvunin continues to hesitate. Sethtaren starts coaxing him to his knees and…

Ah.

No.

Uthvir shrieks. The angriest falcon cry they can manage. They get their beak and talons into the mesh of the cage, and with a few sharp movements, break the metal fibers clean apart. Thenvunin hurries to his feet as Sethtaren backpedals, swearing in surprise; a moment later Uthvir is out, shooting straight through the opening they made.

Their injured wing burns, though. They end up flopping onto the table instead of clawing out Sethtaren’s eyes, internally cursing, and externally hissing.

“Holy fucking hell!” Sethtaren exclaims.

He reaches for the broom by the door, at that, and Uthvir stumbles to the edge of the table as the jackass attempts to smack them with it. A moment later Thenvunin snatches the broom straight out of his hands, and belts his boyfriend clean across the face with the handle instead.

There is the distinctive  _snap_  of a nose breaking, and a cry of shocked pain.

“We do not strike injured birds with brooms, you idiot!” Thenvunin snaps, shrill and outraged.

“You broke my nose!” Sethtaren counters, seething in equal measure.

“I will break a lot more than that if you do not  _get out this instant!”_  Thenvunin insists.

For a moment, it looks like Sethtaren might take exception to that. But Thenvunin is taller, and broader - and in a legitimate fury, it is suddenly impossible not to notice the tensed muscles in his arms and back, straining against the fabric of his t-shirt. The broom handle creaks in his grip, and Sethtaren suddenly seems small and reedy and made of very breakable parts by comparison.

The man turns, holding his bloodied nose, and bolts out the door.

For a moment there is silence.

Thenvunin drops the broom, and then turns to look at Uthvir.

“How in the world did you manage that?” he asks, looking at the mauled cage, before heading over to them. He pulls his thick gloves off his belt, but Uthvir is unresisting as he reaches for them, and carefully picks them up; pausing to check their injured wing.

_Honestly I could have probably gone through the wood on the other side, if I needed to._

If Uthvir is just a bit smug, Thenvunin does not seem to notice.

 

~

 

It is determined, after some debate with Tutheneras and Tarensa, that there must have been some kind of weak point in the cage’s mesh. Uthvir is put into another one, temporarily, until it can be repaired. For the remainder of their recovery, Sethtaren does not come back. Thenvunin mopes, it seems, and is more snappish than usual with his peers. But he also feeds Uthvir extra livers and enthuses a great deal over their recovery; until at last the matter of Release is being discussed.

Uthvir stretches their wings, itching with the temptation to break loose.

Andruil is probably wondering where they have gotten to.

Perhaps she thinks they are dead. That would be nice, for a while. They would not hurry to correct that supposition and return to tearing through the skies, quarrelling with those damn ravens.

In the end, they are wrapped up and deposited into the back of the van again, and Thenvunin drives them well and far away from the city. He does it alone, but sets up a camera as he takes them outside, and carefully frees them from their restraints.

The man’s eyes are suspiciously shiny.

“Now. You be a good bird,” he says.

 _Absolutely not,_  Uthvir thinks, and forces themselves to wait just a moment; even though they are eager to soar. Thenvunin settles them onto his gauntlet, and brushes his hand carefully across their feathers; and then he gives them a jostle, and forces them reflexively up into the air.

Uthvir takes off.

Ah. Freedom.

Their wings stretch and they savour the moment, flying for several minutes just under their own power. They soar and twist, and dip through the air; and then, when they are a good distance away, they call up their magic and split through the Veil. Racing over currents of the Dreaming. They make their way back towards the city, and to the bolthole they have there, in the top floor of an old building owned by one of their cover identities. Then they transform, and savour that, too. They flex their reoriented muscles, and claws, and stretch their magic, and they go and retrieve some decent clothing and supplies.

Boot up an emergency laptop, and start searching.

They have some people to find.

And then they have a bird sanctuary to visit.


	2. Chapter 2

Thenvunin is incredibly dismayed when, not twenty four hours after releasing his hawk, he gets a call from Tarensa at the bird rescue. His hawk has been injured again; apparently struck by a car, this time, on the gravel road outside the residence of several known trouble-makers.

He pulls on a t-shirt and jeans. It’s barely past dawn, he does not suppose many people will be out as he makes his way down to the shelter. Traffic is light enough that he speeds through several yellow lights; Tarensa had not sounded optimistic, and Thenuvnin’s heart is in his throat.

He should have taken the bird further out. He thought they had gone to a remote enough spot, but he should have headed straight through to the mountains. There was better roosting out there; less reason for a hawk to veer back towards the tall buildings of the city. He has a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel as he makes his way down the winding road to the sanctuary, and shoots out of the door before the engine has even finished cooling; taking the stairs two at a time before Tarensa can meet him at the door.

“What’s the damage?” he asks,straightaway. “Did you call Tutheneras?”

“He’s already here,” Tarensa tells him. Her expression is sympathetic; that is a  _terrible_  sign. “It’s not good, Thenvunin. The right wing is broken, and its suffered several lacerations. Lost a lot of blood.”

His heart plummets even further, and he presses a hand to his face.

“It’s not your fault,” Tarensa says.

“Of course not,” he replies, automatically. But it is. It is. This is  _his_ bird. Possibly his favourite. The angry raptor that tore through its mesh cage and hated Sethtaren and made squeaking, friendly noises at Thenvunin. He should have done things differently. Should have done them better. Should  _not_  have let this happen. His hawk was probably investigating some roadkill; probably just being a hawk, when some terrible car came smashing down the road, and ruined everything.

He is still going through the motions of his self-flagellation when Tutheneras finally emerges from the veterinary room.

“That is one of the most resilient birds I have ever seen,” he announces.

Thenvunin lets out a breath.

“It pulled through?” he asks, just to be clear.

His clanmate sighs.

“Technically, yes,” he says. “But that wing is mangled. There’s a chance, but I would lay good odds on it never flying again. Euthanasia might need to be considered. I doubt we’ll get another reintroduction to the wild for this one.”

Thenvunin stiffens, and Tarensa gives Tutheneras a look that implies he’s being obtuse.

“Even if it cannot fly, there are alternatives,” he asserts.

Tutheneras sighs.

“Thenvunin, you cannot keep-”

“Keep what? Looking after injured birds? Is that not what we do here?”

“Yes, it is what we do  _here,”_ Tutheneras snaps back. “We take care of birds and then heal them up and reintroduce them to the wild population. They are not pets; we do not keep them. Sometimes, we cannot save them.”

Thenvunin bristles, folding his arms and frowning. He respects Tutheneras. A great deal.

But sometimes he also wants to punch him in the mouth.

“This is different!” he insists.

The vet shakes his head.

“You always say that…”

“You are not killing my hawk!” Thenvunin snaps, and then storms into the veterinary room. He stills as he sees the tranquilized body, tucked firmly into a set of casts and towels. Eyes closed, as Thenvunin draws closer, and stares at the little recovery cage.

 _You will be alright,_  he thinks.

_I am going to look after you._

~

 

Thenvunin spends as much of his day at the sanctuary as he can. It is not purely indulgent, even if he does use one of his sick days at work - there are some baby bats that need to be fed, and other residents to see to, and the vet room has the best wifi signal anyway so it’s a good place to check his e-mail. In between making certain that his hawk keeps breathing, of course.

It does.

It even wakes up for long enough to drink some water, and squeak at Thenvunin. It recognizes him. He smiles, and even though he knows it’s not the  _best_  idea, he reaches out and grooms some of the feathers on its head.

“Hello again,” he says. “We really do have to stop meeting like this.”

It could be his imagination, but he thinks his hawk agrees.

When Tarensa finally chases him off again, it’s after dark, and his stomach is growling. He stops at a restaurant near to the sanctuary, and tries not to think too hard about the last time he ate here; with Sethtaren.

Before Sethtaren tried to beat his hawk with a broom, and Thenvunin dumped him. He had been reconsidering that decision, lately. Sethtaren just doesn’t understand animals very well. Thenvunin knows that. But for some reason, even though he obviously had nothing to do with it, with his hawk injured again, Thenvunin finds his ire renewed. 

He fishes his phone out from his pocket, and stares at his ex’s number for a long moment.

And then he deletes it.

When he gets home, he calls his mother, and she does a very good job of approving of the decision. And then he watches  _Fly Away Home_ , and eats an entire jar of olives, and falls asleep crying about birds and boyfriends and other heartrending things.

He dreams.

He dreams about his hawk, he thinks. Though that thought seems immediately incongruent, because it is not, in fact, a dream about his hawk at all. Even though he is in the sanctuary. He thinks he might have had one like this before, as narrow, sharp-nailed hands slide around him. One of them toys with the ties of his robe, while the other trails up and down his chest.

Drawing shivers from his skin.

A low voice purrs at him from his back.

“What a shameful delay,” the figure holding him says. 

“What?” Thenvunin wonders. That  _voice._  He wants to just fall right into it. He leans towards them, and the figure holding him grinds against his backside. Tantalisingly moving against him, as they finally pull the knot in his robe free, and let the front fall open. Sharp nails trace idle patterns over his skin, and Thenvunin feels the heat in him build with each little touch.

“Do you always wear purple to bed?” the voice at his back wonders.

“N-no,” he gets out, and then swallows. “And just what is wrong with purple? It is a beautiful colour.”

“So it is,” they agree. “Particularly on you.” 

Their touch, maddening, keeps at the business of tracing lines across his stomach, and chest, and even down to his thighs. But avoiding anything… more to the point. Thenvunin’s cock swells, as he sighs and reminds himself that it’s just… urges. Just urges. Physical reactions. No matter what Sethtaren sometimes said, he is not - he is  _not_  a - a person of loose morals.

Lips press against the back of his shoulder, and he swallows back an inappropriate sound as one hand strays down the middle of his chest. Down, and down, and down…

And then he wakes up.

A gasp on his lips; a near painful erection pressing against the front of his robe. He lets out a curse, and works his own hand downwards. Following the same path, before he closes his palm around himself. He imagines that touch. Those sharp, claw-like fingers, and that  _voice,_  and it doesn’t take him very long to come at all. Stars fly across his vision, and he is hasty enough and desperate enough that he makes a mess of the robe he fell asleep in. The television flickers at him; movie done with but the power still on, as he sucks in ragged breaths.

What a… what a  _terrible_  dream.

He is, of course, very glad it ended before things went further.

Absolutely.

Glad.

He throws an arm across his face, and lets out a shaky sigh.


	3. Chapter 3

Uthvir can admit, they made some further miscalculations in going after the humans who shot them down in the first place.

The primary one probably be assuming they were  _just_  humans. And not some cronies on Falon’Din’s actual payroll, with a monetary investment in keeping any suspiciously large or intelligent animals from being able to participate in the family spats. 

It is also possible the brothers are quarrelling again; Uthvir thinks they heard something about ‘damn ravens’ when the car smashed into them, but that could have been a fit of delirium. Still; it had been somewhat dark, and predatory avian shapes can be a little bit difficult to distinguish among dullards and fools.

They are going to kill those four with extreme prejudice, just as soon as they can finish healing again. 

But this time, they think, they are going to introduce to themselves to Thenvunin first; just to put a stop to all this troubling talk of euthanasia. They give Tutheneras a suspicious look when he comes in in the morning. Their wing is definitely broken, and if they were an ordinary bird, they almost certainly would be dead. But as it stands, they only need to replenish their stamina enough to keep up with some healing spells, and then transform back into their elven shape, and the disaster will be behind them.

At least they did not  _lose_  a wing. They remember a particular incident from centuries ago, and shudder.

But then Thenvunin comes into the sanctuary, and the atmosphere brightens considerably. The man is wearing a purple shirt, and they think of last night’s dream, and clack their beak approvingly. His pants are also very complimentary, and, perhaps most importantly, he gets Tutheneras to finish up and go. And stop looking  _speculatively_  at Uthvir.

 _If that man comes near me with a needle again, I am breaking his hand,_  they think. Not that they doubt his capacity as a vet, and it is hardly his fault that he does not realize that Uthvir is magical. But still.

Thenvunin regards them through the cage mesh for a moment. They are in one of the smaller ones. It is somewhat claustrophobic, although the weight of the towel around them and the sheltering darkness is… not unwelcome. After a moment, Thenvunin sighs.

“You need to stay away from civilization,” he says.

 _What I need to do is stop underestimating the fortune of idiots,_  Uthvir counters. They peck idly at the mesh, and Thenvunin surprises them by tapping the edge of their beak.

“None of that,” he says.

 _Bossy,_  Uthvir thinks.

But they subside. And throughout the day, Thenvunin visits them sporadically, and they are pleased to see no signs of Sethtaren. They drink, and eat, and doze. Focused on regaining their strength, and surprisingly willing to trust that Thenvunin will not let anything happen to them in the meanwhile. Insofar as he  _can._  He opens the cage a few times to feed them, and Uthvir discovers that making friendly hawk-noises will get them petted.

They could shred Thenvunin’s hand so easily.

It makes them hope he is not this bold with any  _other_  raptors in his care.

“This is incredibly foolish of me,” Thenvunin observes himself, which is promising.

In the afternoon he sets about cleaning the sanctuary. There is a small parakeet, which seems to be an actual pet as much as a resident of the facility; it rides around on Thenvunin’s shoulder as he sweeps the floors and loudly sings Orlesian pop music. And shimmies his hips.

Uthvir approves.

But then a truck pulls in, and Thenvunin kills the music and straightens his hair, and puts his duet partner back in its cage. They feel a rush of disappointment; but console themselves with the fact that the angle of the cage means that when Thenvunin boots up his laptop after Tarensa comes in, they can see his screen over his shoulder.

They fall asleep to the soft sounds of keys clacking, and the glowing outline of a blog post about antique weapon collections.

 _Huh,_  they think.

This man is one hell of an onion.

 

~

 

The tiny parakeet is not a resident which Uthvir had chanced to meet before.

Probably because they never spent this much time in the veterinary room before. Their old enclosure is sectioned off elsewhere; but with their wing still giving them so much grief, there is more need for observation than flight room, it seems. 

On the third day of their stay, Tutheneras gives them a piece of meat that is obviously laced with drugs.

Uthvir pushes it to a corner of the cage, and then has to deal with an argument between two elves when Thenvunin arrives at noon, and Tutheneras declares that they are rejecting food, and Thenvunin mentions that they were eating fine yesterday, and then finally it ends with Thenvunin brings them a fresh piece of meat that is  _not_  drugged and they happily consume it.

“Creators,” Tutheneras swears. “You have it eating out of your hand.”

“I did not hand feed it, I just put the meat in the cage!” Thenvunin counters. 

The parakeet trills, then, and he makes placating kissy noises at it while the vet looks pained.

Uthvir pecks idly at the mesh again, which gets Thenvunin’s attention back on them instead. It is a more sporadic day for the elf’s visits, as he only seems to come around noon, and then again later in the evening. He lets the parakeet out while some elves whose names Uthvir has not bothered to learn scurry about, and someone calls in about a fledgling and gets some very rote-sounding advice on leaving it be.

After that, Thenvunin comes over to check on them again. Uthvir looks up from where they had been distractedly mauling their towel, and offers him a friendly sound.

He smiles back.

“It is a little cramped in there, isn’t it?” he says.

_Absolutely._

“Please do not maul me.”

_Would I do a thing like that? Well. To you, anyway. I have mauled my fair share of people, I suppose._

Thenvunin opens up the cage, and carefully pulls them out into a fresh towel. He checks their wounds, and makes ridiculous squeaking noises at them, and gives their injured wing another look as well.

Then he sighs.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asks. 

_I can think of a few things._

But, Uthvir supposes, their survival is currently rather dependant upon the man’s good graces. So they have the perfect excuse to make themselves as cuddly and likeable as a large, predatory raptor can be. They blink, and rub their head up against his shirt, and make a lot of friendly noises. Soft calls and gently-pitched grooming sounds, that have Thenvunin’s eyes widening, and his fingers gently working through the feathers that are safely away from their injuries.

“I like you too,” he tells them.

 _Excellent,_  Uthvir thinks.  _Hopefully you will not scream too loudly when I turn into an elf, in that case._

Not that they plan on just ‘poofing’ into one in front of him at the nearest opportune moment.

They are not  _that_  tactless.

…Most of the time.

Dramatics have their place, anyway. And besides which, the parakeet looks jealous.

They probably should not feel quite so smug about that.

 

~

 

“ _Thenvunin.”_

“What? No. No one was hugging the hawk. I was just checking its… wing. Up close.”

“Thenvunin, for  _pity’s sake-”_

“Well I would think you might be pleased to know that our patient is improving, Tutheneras! And it  _likes_  being handled. Perhaps it is a domesticated hawk. That would explain some things, like why it came back towards civilization.”

“You cannot keep the hawk, Thenvunin. It is a hawk. Creators, this is the Flamingo Incident all over again!”

“It is not! It is  _completely_  different!”

“…Could you at least stop  _cuddling with it_  while I chastise you?”

“I think you should lower your voice, really. That kind of tone is very abrasive to the senses of recovering birds.”


End file.
